


Ampersand

by Crumbledown (VerbtheAdjectiveNoun)



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Gen, Mild Language, Post Reichenbach, Reunion
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-21
Updated: 2013-06-21
Packaged: 2017-12-15 16:36:04
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,026
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/851665
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VerbtheAdjectiveNoun/pseuds/Crumbledown
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John was doing well, after Sherlock died. He knew that he couldn't depend on other people to define him anymore. He couldn't allow it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ampersand

**Author's Note:**

> I own nothing you recognize. Sherlock Holmes and John Watson belong to ACD and the BBC and all those other guys who have had a hand in the franchise over the years. This story is loosely based off Ampersand by Amanda Palmer. I do not intent to continue this particular story.

_John felt more and more like he had when he arrived back on home soil. His numbness and sadness and vacant craving for adrenaline cocooned him. He’d survived Afghanistan, the blood and the sand and the flies and the sound of speeding bullets. The sounds of screaming men and women. He found himself gravitating to the screams in London much as he found himself trudging through rapidly swirling sand to help the next victim of war. He survived being shot; he could survive losing Sherlock._

He had just arrived home from a late shift at the clinic. He couldn’t stand to leave Baker Street, though he couldn’t exactly afford it on his own. Mrs. Hudson kept the rent at the ‘favour’ price she gave Sherlock, and he insisted that she rent out the bedroom upstairs- though of course she didn’t. He took Sherlock’s room in claims that it was bigger than his own. He didn’t see the point in leaving everything untouched, or unused. John didn’t want to be haunted by ghosts; he didn’t want to look at a chair and think about the last time Sherlock sat there. He didn’t want to look at the violin and wonder when it’d be played again- John invited his few guests to sit in either chair and when he felt a bit sad or bored he would pick up the violin; he would mimic Sherlock’s posture and clumsily glide bow across the strings, or sometimes he would just mindlessly pull and bend the strings with his fingertips. It sounded God-awful, but it made John smile to know that such a loved instrument would continue to annoy the neighbors.

John was lost in thought as he headed up the stairs to his flat and carelessly stripped himself of his coat and shoes. He flicked on the telly without a thought and busied himself with the kettle for his usual cuppa. The violin was sitting exactly where he’d left it, and he thought it looked about as lonely as he felt. John quietly plucked at the strings as he waited for the kettle to boil, the sound of some idle pointless chat-show provided a bit of comforting white noise. He looked to the window as he heard a siren from an emergency vehicle- likely an ambulance, he thought, approach and zoom away. He smiled and tucked the violin under his arm as the boiling jug automatically clicked off.

_He didn’t carry as much clout as he used to without the tall, formidable detective beside him. He couldn’t help out on scenes the way he used to, he wasn’t a paramedic, he wasn’t police, he wasn’t even a consulting detective’s assistant. He was just a witness. He started paying extra attention to the calls of sirens. Fire, ambulance, police. He knew he couldn’t do anything to help, but he’d smile thinking of all the potential of something to break a dead man’s tedium._  
  
He never expected to be dragged into another man’s identity so thoroughly. He’d already tried identifying himself through his sister, but she had nothing of it. By the time he realized, he’d already spent the majority of his life trying to slot in with hers. As a child, John was precocious and caring, defending her every oddity though more often than not she’d beat him up afterwards for his troubles. He’d supported his sister as she came out but she searched for reasons to call him out and to say that he just didn’t understand her, so desperate she’d been to be a misfit. As a young man, John tried to help his sister, who resented all of the attention he gave her in support, and the alcohol seemed to be a better crutch. He became a doctor to help heal his sister’s wounds and slowly came to realize that she had to help herself before he could do a thing. She did not want anyone, especially her baby brother, to help her.

_He’d enlisted in a war where he WAS needed, where life was in peril and the sounds of the dying followed him into the night. When he was shot and brought back home, John no longer felt like he had any place in anywhere, even more than before. His healing nature denied by his sister and his livelihood stripped away like the flesh on his shoulder. He felt lost.  He’d spent his life on helping, healing, killing and he wasn’t fit to any of the three, not anymore._

_Then he met Sherlock. A man who gave him reason to hope that he might still do some good in a world gone mad. A woman lay dead on the floor and Sherlock had deduced just as much from a corpse as he had from a living man. John could no way be his equal in genius- he’d run himself hoarse trying to harmonize with the man in speed of his deductions before making even one relevant point. He tried to keep up as best as he could, but it was so much easier to just watch and play catch up when Sherlock paused for breath than try to keep pace. He’d be crazy to think he could match the madman._  
  
The flat seemed to be too quiet even with the telly on. He heard Mrs. Hudson pottering about downstairs and wondered if he should stop in to say hello. He could bring an extra cup of tea… but she was likely in her nighty getting ready for bed with her herbal soothers. He’s seen her once with her herbal soothers and had a bit of a laugh- she was harebrained and disoriented, he’d likely scare her if he showed up unannounced at this hour in the evening. Though, he supposed, it was a damn sight more considerate than stomping up and down the stairs at all hours, to and from cases with Sherlock. Deciding against disrupting his lovely landlady’s routine, he settled into Sherlock’s preferred chair and stared blankly at the images flickering on the television. He   moved the violin from his armpit and caressed the body-heated wood in admiration of its craftsmanship, though he really had no idea if the abused instrument was worthless or priceless to anyone but him. He gently stroked the strings with his fingertips, not plucking or picking, just softly enough to hear the strings resonate with a comforting buzz.

_He thought he’d been trying to prove to Harry that he could handle her moods, that he understood her depression and drinking. He ran through fire trying to save his sister, but he was really trying to save himself from losing who he might have been. How could he save someone when he’d never had his own identity? John Watson, savior of Harry Watson? God, no wonder she resented him. How pompous and arrogant had he been? The war made him see what he was doing, clearly. He was trying to raise HIMSELF on a pedestal for his sister’s admiration. He saw how fleeting a life could be on the battlefield. He thought this made him strong. The first time he attended to a fallen soldier, his hands shook, and when the boy-for he truly was just a young boy at 18 years old- died, John thought that he’d become a rock. He’d hardened, he was strong, he was fireproof. Then he’d been shot quickly came to realize that to be strong, he didn’t have to be flame-retardant._

_Invalided home, he spent a few weeks in London hospital. Harry came to visit and he hated it. Her breath smelled of whiskey and her eyes were red. She accused him of getting shot on purpose, because he was jealous that she was always in the limelight._

_‘Yes, because I love playing chicken with bullets!’_

_He asked her not to visit again._

_“I’ve left Clara, take this. Keep in touch, you arse.” She left her mobile with him._

  
John was lost in thought when he heard someone start up the stairs. Maybe Mrs. Hudson had was having a lonely night too, and decided to come up for a cup of tea. The water was just starting to cool. He tucked the violin under his arm as he hoisted himself out of his seat to quickly re-boil the kettle to have it ready on offer. Even if she declined, he might feel like a second cup anyway. He heard a few footsteps pacing outside his door. Maybe it wasn’t Mrs. Hudson come to call. Perhaps Greg or Mycroft? John wasn’t about to go answer a door that hadn’t been knocked, however. He waited for the water to reheat and toyed with the strings on the violin, plucking and rubbing and stroking.

A person doesn’t have to be Sherlock Holmes to tell the difference between the sneaking footsteps as someone tries not to wake a patient in a hospital, or the hurried footsteps of someone late for an important appointment, or even the impatient footsteps of a young boy stomping after his mother into store after store trying to find ‘the perfect shoes’ and spending far too much money. These were the steps of someone on the cusp of indecision, and John knew that whomever they were needed to make it on their own and not have the choice thrust upon them.

As his unknown guest got themselves together, he thought about the last time he made the same indecisive footsteps in exactly the same place.

_It was right before Sherlock’s funeral. There was no way he COULDN’T go. He had been asked however, to say a few words. There was nothing John could have written or said to protect Sherlock’s slandered name._

_Shortly after the horror show that was the funeral (paparazzi and a million strangers. John saw maybe 5 friendly, familiar faces and 2 horrific, familiar faces trying their best to look ashamed) the tabloids had been all over John.  One particularly audacious reporter who harangued him and finally got her quote of the century. He ignored the papers for days after he snapped at her, but he felt like it was maybe a necessary evil. Who knows how long he would have gone on without saying anything?_

_He tried leaving his flat to get some more milk and tea. He wasn’t eating or drinking much else, just cup after cup of milky tea. The more clever reporters had trickled away, realizing that their time would be better used stalking a proper British celebrity in the midst of his or her personal scandal, but the leeches from the lesser papers stuck around, vying for a break and for John’s attention. They would ask the most horrible and the most obvious questions._

_“You saw him do it. How did it make you feel?”_

_“What did he say to you? Was it the result of a lover’s spat?”_

_But the question to make him snap:_

_“Do you blame yourself?”_

_“He made me watch him jump and I couldn’t stop him. Of course I blame myself, so, please, kindly, FUCK OFF YOU WRETCHED SHIT!”_

_He hadn’t realized how much blame he’d carried, but after admitting it; however violently; he began to feel like he could maybe consider moving on. He didn’t have to be numb, and he didn’t have to stop living. He could find himself as John Watson the man. He didn’t have to be John Watson, Harry’s brother. He didn’t have to be John Watson, Sherlock’s flat mate. He could be John Watson. He might even like it._

There was a gentle tapping at the door which brought John out of his awful reverie. He made his way to the door and started to speak as he opened it for his guest.

“Yes?” and his voice left his throat completely. He closed the door as fast as he could, the blood running from his head and into his toes; his lungs trapped between breaths. He felt an awful sick prickle crawling up through his scalp, down his chest and arms, pinching every follicle and raising every hair. His stomach fell down to his knees and then rocketed back up somewhere around the vicinity of his heart, which was pumping loudly in his ears.

“Leave. Now.” His voice sounded alien.  
  
 But John disagreed with angry words coming from his mouth. He heard a tentative foot step head the opposite direction.

“No. Just… stop.”

Those last three words were forced out of his lungs more than his mouth and John could breathe again.

He slumped on the floor against the door, as if the ghost would try forcing his way in. He hugged the violin tight to his chest and found his fingers plucking hard at the strings. He couldn’t hear anything for the awful rushing noise in his head. He saw nothing but the imprint of a fleeting glimpse of a familiar silhouette. He had the barest of looks at the man at the door and it was enough.

John knew that Sherlock hadn’t left. He felt the door shift and knew that if that the 2 inch bit of wood were to suddenly disappear, his back would be resting against his dead best friend’s. He might be able to feel Sherlock’s warmth through the other side if he concentrated hard enough.

“Don’t leave. Don’t say a word, or I will do something very stupid,” John’s voice came back and he sounded as if he could be speaking about the weather. The frantic plucking continued, giving away how very not-okay he was. He took a few moments and the tortured strings of the violin quickly faded to silence.

“Were you skulking around corners this whole time? Are you disappointed that I didn’t fall completely apart? You didn’t know me before the war, but you saw how I was. You fixed me, and then you tore me apart and I had to put myself back together. I watched you fix me and… I had to learn how to do it too.”

John stopped hugging the violin in his hands, and opted to look it over as he spoke. He trailed his hand along the wood, feeling for the small chips and dents he knew were there from its owner’s disrespect for the instrument. He could remember all of the fresher dents, but the poor thing had taken a few years of beating before he’d even come into the picture. He watched the blue light from the television catch the varnish, making the brown wood glow. His eyes unfocused as he looked at the flashes of blue on brown, and found it was easier to talk to the violin than it was to the phantom on the other side of the door.

“I’d lay in bed for hours thinking about what you said to me. It’s a magic trick. I actually prayed for this day, but now that it’s here I am just… furious. Of course it was a magic trick. Look at Irene. What did you use? Was it fucking ketchup in your eyes, you sardonic bastard? Was it satisfying that you tricked simple Doctor Watson? I managed to hold it together, or at least I reckon I did a good job of faking it. I hadn’t fallen to pieces. Not till now. You just… you just show up and… You somehow became my entire life and I nearly became crazy with how much YOU there was in my life. You took up so much of me there was hardly any me left. And then you ripped yourself away and I had to find myself again. I was getting there.”

He stroked the strings gently as he took a steadying breath and closed his eyes. He had to stop talking to the violin and address the bastard directly.

“I haven’t been… I don’t think I deserved what I got from you, Sherlock. I didn’t deserve for you to come swooping in to save me from my stupid, pathetic existence and make me better. And I certainly did not deserve watching you fucking pretend to kill yourself. Goddamnit, I would have helped you given the chance. I would have done anything for you, because… because YOU are the one that needs protecting. I figure that’s what this was about, yeah? You were trying to protect me? I promise you, I don’t need protecting. I’m a soldier, I’m a doctor, I’m your best fucking friend and if there IS a next time, you will tell me and you will let me help. You will not leave me like that again. I don’t care whose life is on the line. But I don’t want to be half of a whole, anymore. I can’t be the arse end of an ampersand.”

He gently tossed the violin on the nearest soft surface, pulled himself up off the floor and moved away from the entry. He made his movements loud and deliberate, and went back into the kitchen to turn the kettle on again. Old habits, after a row.

John heard movement behind him but refused to turn around. He had his old mug of cold tea sitting on the counter, and a second mug that he had started to prepare for Mrs. Hudson. As he rinsed his mug and re-prepared their tea, he heard the abused violin receive the re-tuning it desperately needed. He steeled himself as he turned around, mugs in hand, and stared at the ground as he made his way to the two chairs by the fireplace. He refused to look at Sherlock as he handed him the hot mug, and would not look anywhere but at his own tea as he sat opposite in his normal chair.

As Sherlock took a deep breath, as if he were about to say something, John put up his hand. “No. Not yet. Not a word. You’re not allowed to speak until I’ve had my cuppa.”

A soft, deep chuckle filled the room for a brief moment. The unexpected sound made John’s heart twist with joy, and his eyes stung for how quickly they flooded with tears.

“That counts. Shut up.”

John took a very long time to finish his tea. 

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this months ago, edited it moments ago, and I'm just going to post it for the sake of posting it.


End file.
